


Stay

by Embracingtheplotbunnies



Series: New Targaryen Dynasty [4]
Category: game of thrones
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, not based on season 7 leaks, post Battle for the Dawn, rlj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 22:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embracingtheplotbunnies/pseuds/Embracingtheplotbunnies
Summary: Jon comforts Dany after the loss of one of her dragons. Not the dragon you're expecting.(Not based on Season 7 leaks)





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again, everyone! 
> 
> As you will see, this is not the wedding fic but it's on its way. Despite what the summary says, this is not based on the leaks from last year-but since everyone seems to want fanfic based on the leaks I figured I'd just publish this now. This is an idea I've had cooking up for at least a year, and I figured that instead of just writing a fanfic based on the leaks and the fanfic that goes in my universe (this one), which would essentially be writing the same fic twice, I'd just write this now. 
> 
> And yes, I'm very sorry-believe me, I didn't want to kill him off but every big battle needs stakes. 
> 
> Also, visit me at my official Jonerys Tumblr @bluerosesinawallofice ! I answer questions about the series (especially helpful later when next gen Targaryen kids are involved later) and take requests for AUs and oneshots! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Her Grace isn’t at breakfast on the eighth day after the Battle of the Dawn. 

This shouldn’t surprise Jon as much as it does. After all, she’s only been back at Winterfell for four days-she spent four days with Bran and what remained of the Children of the Forest, healing from the Battle-and by all rights, she must be exhausted. But for the past few days she’s always been at breakfast, talking with Sansa over oatmeal with extra brown sugar sprinkled in, and laughing often. Even though Jon can tell just by looking at her that she’s hurting more than she can possibly describe, in more ways than one. But everyone just pretends that everything is normal because the Queen is supposed to be strong-and besides, there are too many other things to attend to. More important things, by all accounts. 

But that still doesn’t explain why she isn’t here. 

He slips out of the Great Hall (it’s easy; both of his sisters are busy) and climbs the stairs two at a time to reach Sansa’s chambers, now outfitted for the Queen. Two of her Queensguard stand at the door, and they stop him when he tries to go in-it takes some quick talking for him to be allowed inside. 

Secretly, he thinks they’re just as worried as he is. 

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the bedchamber-the curtains are still drawn across the windows, and he fumbles to light a candle so he won’t trip over her trunk of clothing at the foot of the bed. The candlelight bounces around the spartan furniture-the bed, the vanity, the writing desk. Even though nothing in the room has outwardly changed, he can’t believe it’s the same room where he and Dany slept together the night before the Battle. Back then it seemed full of light and possibility, but now he only sees it as a place of loss. 

The Queen is still in bed, curled up on her side and looking unseeingly out at the velvet curtains. Her hair lies tangled across her pillows and her eyes are glazed over with a mixture of exhaustion and sadness. She barely looks at him when he comes in, so far in a place that he can’t follow her to. But she whispers his name, in a voice that’s barely there. “Jon.” 

“Do you need anything?” Jon replies, pulling up a chair next to her bedside. He realizes he should have brought her some breakfast; she must be starving. 

She shakes her head, but he sees her tear up and the way her hand inadvertently flits to the mess of bandages that covers her stomach, visible even through her nightdress; he makes a mental note to ask the healers for a new set. But he knows the physical injuries aren’t what’s bothering her; she would wait impatiently for them to heal and be up and about by now if that was the case. She misses something that’s not so easy to fix, something no one can bring her-Drogon. Not only a dragon, but her child as well, dead on the battlefield like so many. 

He understands, in a way-he lost Ghost too, and the direwolf’s blood was absorbed into Lightbringer’s blade. He still misses the direwolf every day, still feels his presence at his side even though there’s nothing there; because he was there for him when he had no one else, when he was a lonely bastard far away at the top of the world and he was convinced that was all he’d ever be. But he also doesn’t understand at all, because he knows the bond between Dany and her dragons-especially Drogon-is different. They’re not just companions and protectors; they’re also her children. And not the first one she’s lost either. 

He’s helpless, not the least because he’s not used to crying girls (or girls in general, to be honest). Dany is always the one who keeps it together, who pushes through even when everyone else wants to quit, who encourages everyone to take that final step-but there’s not a trace of the confident queen in the girl he sees in front of him. All that remains is a husk and a shell, barely even human. Barely even surviving. 

He takes her hand hesitantly, unsure where they stand now-but mercifully, she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t pull away either, even when he starts to draw gentle circles on the back of her hand between her third and fourth knuckles, trying to reassure her silently that he’s there for her however she needs him to be. They just sit there in the silence and the darkness, feeling the room pressing in around them, alone with their ghosts. 

 

She’s never slept in. 

She didn’t mean to today-she just had one of her dreams again. The ones that always make her awake in a cold sweat, twisted in her covers-and then make her cry when she realizes they aren’t real. They happen more and more these days: she’ll be riding Drogon, with the wind blowing through her hair and the countryside spread out below her, only to have it all ripped away as soon as she wakes up. 

She drifts in and out of awareness, knowing that the Starks will be expecting her for breakfast, but she can’t seem to bring herself to get out of bed. She knows she’s been running on borrowed energy for days on end now; she doesn’t sleep at night and she’s always too busy in the daytime to even consider what happened. Usually that’s a good thing, but she can always feel the sadness like a weight at the back of her skull, crushing her if she gets too close-and she doesn’t think she can keep it away indefinitely. 

Even so, she’s surprised to wake up and see Jon next to her. She can only imagine what she must look like, but around him she’s surprised to find that she doesn’t care because he doesn't usually think about things like that. He looks put together-his hair hangs long around his face, he’s clean shaven, and he’s wearing a new doublet embroidered with the Stark direwolf. But she sees a glimmer of the same haunted sadness in his eyes that she knows he can see in her own. They’re alike in their loss, more than anyone might guess. 

“Did you see the dragons this morning?” It almost physically pains her to say it, but she has to know. After all, she’s still their mother. 

He nods. “They were just going hunting.” He looks away and clears his throat-she realizes that he feels obligated to say something he doesn’t want to. “They were keening again last night. They miss you.” 

She knows; she heard their wails even in her dreams, tearing at her heart. But she doesn’t know how she can comfort them when she can barely comfort herself. “They miss their brother.”

“Yes,” he replies, purposefully keeping his tone even and measured. “But they also miss their mother.” 

She turns away from him, looking away into the darkness. “It’s my fault.” 

“He was the only one who had a chance of taking on that ice dragon, and you know it. If he hadn’t done what he did, Viserion would have lost a wing and we would have lost thousands of men-and maybe the battle too.” 

He doesn’t understand. “He died in pain and I couldn’t save him.” Her voice trembles on the last word and he squeezes her hand tentatively, almost as if he’s asking permission. 

She squeezes back, as if he’s the last lifeline she has left. 

“I wish I could ease your grief-” 

She shakes her head, hard. It’s not possible, and they both know it. 

Her pillow still smells faintly like his hair, which is ridiculous because it’s been more than a week since he’s last been in this bed-but it still makes her remember that night when they were reckless because they had nothing to lose. And even so, she lost something so important she can’t imagine ever being whole again. 

“Stay,” she replies softly. “Please stay.” 

And he does. 

 

Jon tells Sansa that the Queen is taking a sick day, while Dany spends the next hour dozing intermittently. When she finally pulls herself upright, she’s practically shaking; her eyes are bloodshot and she looks like she’d rather be asleep. It’s one of the very few moments when Jon knows he truly sees her-not one of her masks, not what she wants him to see, but who she truly is. For all of her accomplishments, for everything that she’s seen and done, she’s still younger than he is. It shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. 

“You don’t have to stay here all day, you know,” she says after another hour of silence. “I know you probably have things to do-”

“Sansa can do them,” he replies. “She’d probably be offended if I tried to help her. She is Lady of Winterfell after all.” 

Her laugh is more of a whisper, but he still feels a shock of pride-at least until her tone turns serious. “Everyone says I’ll feel better tomorrow...but I wake up the next day and feel worse.” 

“That’s the nature of grief.” He wonders how much experience she’s had with it; obviously he knows two of her husbands have died but only one of them really mattered, and there was her son… “It takes a long time before you even feel normal again, let alone feel better.” 

“When Khal Drogo and my son died, I didn’t have time to mourn them. There were the...dragons to care for and a khalasar to look after. We were crossing the Red Wastes and I had to hold the tribe together, lest we all fall apart. I always had my work, I always had problems that had to be solved...but now I don’t. We have relative peace for the first time and...things are too quiet. They can’t drown out my head anymore.” She shook her head again. “I should be happy, but sometimes I wish there was another battle to fight just so...I wouldn't have to think about him at all hours-”

“Sooner or later something will come up. But he was your child. Doesn’t he deserve a period of mourning?” 

There’s another long silence. “How did you deal with it when your brother died? When Ned Stark died?” 

“Same way as you, I expect. It was easier in a way because I wasn’t there to see it-but I still thought about them every free minute when I hadn’t thrown myself into my work. I worked harder than ever, and dreaded the nights-dreaded any moment I had to really think, because I knew when I did it would all come back." He cleared his throat; it felt odd to talk about something he thought he'd left behind a long time ago. "Take comfort in the fact that he died a hero’s death.” 

“He shouldn’t have died at all.”

“If it hadn’t been for him, we wouldn’t be standing here at all. I should be thanking him-and thanking you-for all of the survivors...for the lives of my brother and sisters.” 

She shakes her head. “I made the choice. I urged him to fight the ice dragon because I knew without it we might stand a chance...he was hesitant, but he went. Maybe even then he knew-”

“You can’t blame yourself. Dragons aren’t like pets-you can’t command them to do things. You urged him into a battle that could potentially prove fatal, and he followed you. Because he loved you. It was his choice as much as it was yours.” 

She doesn’t reply, but he thinks he feels something in the air shift-a loosening of tension, maybe a release of breath. Even so, he’s not prepared for what she says next. 

“You don’t need to sit in that hard chair, if you don’t want to. Lie next to me. There’s plenty of space.” 

There’s a small part of him that still balks at the idea of being so intimate, but there’s a greater part of him who goes along with it. After all, they’ve already slept together once before-and this certainly won’t turn into that-so what can the harm be in just talking? So he lies down next to her, feeling the mattress creak under the sudden addition of weight. 

“All this time we’ve been talking about me,” she continues once he’s settled, “and I haven’t even asked you about Ghost.” 

Grief shudders through his chest. “It’s hard. I won’t lie. I still wake up sometimes and for a few seconds I forget...But he didn’t have a choice. I killed him in cold blood-and he still looked at me so trustingly, until the very end-”

She trails a hand down his forearm. “You did it to forge Lightbringer. A very honorable death, don’t you think?” 

“Like you, I wish he hadn’t died at all.” 

“There will be more direwolves. I don’t know if there will ever be more dragons.” 

“Maybe, maybe not. We didn’t think there were any left after the Dance and yet...here we are. The world has changed; we might as well change with it.” 

A single tear falls from her eye, trailing down the side of her face and puddling onto her white nightgown. “I remember him, every moment of every day-when he was small enough to sit on my shoulder, when he was just learning how to fly, when he rescued me, when he liberated my city...when we would fly for hours because it was the only place where I could truly think…” More tears follow, and he tentatively pulls her a little closer. He wishes there was some way he could shoulder her sadness, other than offer himself for her to talk to. 

“I can’t promise you that it will be easy,” he says finally. “I can’t promise you that you’ll wake up tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and feel better. But I can promise you that one day you’ll wake up and you’ll find that the sharp edges of your grief has dulled, and you can think about him with more than sadness. You’ll begin to remember who he was, and after a while-a long while-your love for him will overwhelm the grief you feel that he’s no longer with you.” And they have time. Now they have all the time in the world. “Besides, you still have other children.”

“They don’t want to see me.”

“I would beg to differ. And...Viserion has never had a rider…”

“It won’t be the same.”

“But it would be okay, for a while. And after that it might even be good. Not as good as with Drogon, but passable.” 

The tears come faster and without prompting she turns so they fall onto his shirt. Jon doesn’t say anything, aware with every moment that this is the first time he’s ever seen her cry, ever seen her look anything other than royal. 

But it makes her human, and to him that makes her even more beautiful. 

 

They doze on and off for most of the afternoon; the next time that Dany wakes up the light creeping through the drawn curtains is the light violet of early dusk. Jon is still next to her, still sleeping evenly as her tears dry on his shirt. She disentangles herself from his embrace slowly, careful not to wake him or do anything that might startle him, but he wakes up anyway. 

“What time is it?” He tries to smooth down his hair and she becomes acutely aware that this is the first time she’s woken up beside him. 

“Almost dusk,” she replied. “We wasted an entire day.”

“We didn’t waste it. Everyone grieves, your Grace. It’s a part of being human.”

“It’s painful.” 

“I can’t argue with you there-but pain is the price we pay for love. And..at one point or another, it will feel worth it."

“Thank for being here with me, just for today.” She smooths down his hair for him, unable to help herself, and he blushes so hard it makes her laugh. 

“It was my greatest pleasure.” They lay in comfortable silence for a minute, listening to servants talking through the walls around them and silently hoping no one finds them and asks odd questions. 

The grief is still there as a dull ache in her chest, but it’s less prominent than it was before so she allows herself to turn to more pressing matters, relighting the candle on her bedside table. “We need to decide where we go from here.”

The mood shift is almost palpable, from a comfortable silence between friends to a tension between a monarch and her subject caught in a moment they really shouldn’t be having. “I suppose we should.” 

She keeps her face expressionless as she says quietly “There’s a position open for the Northern Ambassador to King’s Landing. It would require a lot of traveling, but-”

He runs a hand through his hair, looking almost embarrassed. “I don’t think I can take it.”

“Oh.” Something in her stomach drops sickeningly. She shouldn’t be surprised; of course he wouldn’t want to go back to King’s Landing, especially when he finally has her family back and he's opposed to the very idea of being a king-and he's not so accepting of the incest either. But she still feels the cold sting of rejection; it’s a new feeling, and she doesn’t like it. 

He suddenly backtracks. “Not that...I mean...with Sansa and Arya-”

"Obviously. Of course. I’m sorry, I should have thought it through first.” So that's it then. This is where their journey together ends. It should be a relief-they could never be something serious anyway-but instead it only feels painful. 

“Don’t be sorry.” 

The silence stretches between them, long and awkward, and she casts about desperately for something to clear it. 

She stands and shooes him out. “Let me get changed and then I’ll go see my other children.” 

For a moment he stands in the doorway as if he wants to say something else but she turns away before he can and strips out of her nightgown, cursing winter and the cold as she pulls on her warmest dress and a fur lined black cape. 

When she turns back, he’s gone. 

 

As they walk through Winterfell’s crowded hallways on their way to the dragon pens, Jon keeps running through their exchange, wondering what he did wrong and how he can make it right again. He hasn’t remembered things being this tense with Dany ever since their first meeting and it’s a shame because he could almost consider her one of his friends. 

But before he can say anything she reaches the dragons, who are both fighting over what looks like a bear carcass-although they turn away from it as soon as they see her. He stops where he is a couple of meters away, feeling as though he’s intruding on something he shouldn’t be seeing. Rhaegal crows happily and Viserion lets out a noise that almost sounds like a cat purr. 

And the Queen’s face lights up, even as her eyes start to well with tears. 

He turns away and starts walking back to the castle, his feet kicking up clods of snow as he goes along. He has to stay in Winterfell with his siblings. It’s the right thing to do because he hasn’t seen them in so long-isn’t it? Besides whatever his relationship with the Queen happens to be, it can’t possibly go anywhere. It doesn't matter who his father is; he's not cut out to be a king. He despises the idea of a crown on his head-and he has so little experience being a ruler. He wouldn't know what to do, even if he did feel comfortable taking his father's name. He's not used to the limelight and he's not sure he wants to live that kind of a life. 

And he can’t father a bastard. He can’t subject another child to the life he grew up with. 

Even so, he stops in the doorway to the Keep and looks out at the dragons, only two dots in the distance-and Dany, somewhere next to them. Grieving but living. Just like they all are. 

He mentally resolves to say goodbye to her, no matter how hard it might be. It's for their own good, after all.

Even if he loves her.


End file.
